Interesting Panasonic FZ80 Zoom Test

And I thought the FZ50 had a far zoom. Yeah, maybe 10 years ago, but technology has progressed massively in the camera world since then. So, how does the Panasonic FZ80 compare to some of the other big zoomers in the world of Bridge cameras, like the Nikon P900, P950 and P1000. Well, it actually holds its own quite well. The test video below shows the capabilities of the FZ80's zoom by closing in on the planets. The planets are the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. The clip quality or closeness isn't that great for anything other than the Moon. But when it comes to zooming in on the same planets, like Saturn etc, even though they have more reach, it's similar with the big Nikon's mentioned above.

None of those can pick up clear or close footage of Jupiter, Saturn or Mars either. It might just be a bit closer with the Nikon's, but not by much. Which is understandable given how far away the planets are claimed to be away from the Earth. But when you consider the price difference, and also the difference in the zoom range length between the FZ80 and the Nikon's [Lumix 60 x optical Vs Nikon big three 83 - 125 x optical], the FZ80 is quite impressive. And its considerably smaller in size. But I should add. Looking at some of the birding sample images on the Imaging-resource.com website, I can't help but notice how bad they are. Lot's of noise. I know they were taken at far zoom lengths, but I expected much better quality than that. In RAW and JPG.

 

#Astrophotogaphy